Blocking the public a major foul

It was well and good for Government House Leader John Baird to rise in question period Monday and tell the Liberals he needed "no lecture" on the ethics of subverting our federal access to information laws.

The Liberals wrote the book on it.

This is not to say, however, that Baird does not need to be lectured. Because he does.

And, just as Baird needs to be lectured, Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis needs to either resign -- to fall on his sword like his senior aide did when caught subverting the ATI laws -- or tell Canadians that his Conservative government couldn't care less about our legal right to know.

Otherwise, one's no better than the other.

Documents obtained by Sun Media prove at least one department under former Liberal PM Paul Martin interfered with the release of politically-toxic documents -- all which was laid out in a briefing book left behind by international trade minister Jim Peterson's office, which showed a system had been developed to ensure prior approval by political staff.

But the Conservatives are just as bad. And the sole resignation of one of Paradis' political aides doesn't quite cut it when the issue is the right of Canadians, including the media, to get legally-entitled information that ensures Big Brother isn't running amok.

The CBC, which takes a billion dollars a year from taxpayers, and is therefore accountable to them, has been dodging that accountability for more than three years now by fighting ATI requests regarding its operation.

Our ATI laws are a mess, but their value is undeniable.

One has to look no further than the case of retired military intelligence officer Sean Bruyea who, once he got his file, discovered thousands of pages of his personal and medical history were being passed around in one of the grossest invasions of privacy imaginable.

Having any politician slough off our ATI laws as minor inconveniences that can be blocked at the first whiff of trouble is nothing short of contempt.

Just because the Liberals are hypocrites for calling for Paradis' head when their own ethics record stinks, doesn't give Paradis any right to continue with the subversion.